Three artists at the Tyneside Cinema have been exploring the aspects of film-making that most audiences don’t see, as DAVID WHETSTONE reports
MOST people think of the cinema as a place to go to see a film with some nice refresh- ments thrown in. But the Tyneside Cinema is a bit different.
As well as being a receiving house for the latest films made around the world, stuff gets made at the Tyneside, a cinema whose long history has seen it evolve from newsreel to art house to new media pioneer.
The cinema’s Pixel Palace programme, run by Dominic Scott and Andrea Macdonald, is devoted to digital arts and new media.
Earlier in the year it announced its first artist-in-residence programme, commissioning three artists to develop new work over a two-month spell at the Pilgrim Street venue.
They are Kelly Richardson, Katie Goodwin and Rachel Lancaster. On Saturday they will show the public how the cinema residency has inspired them – and I was privileged to meet them yesterday for a preview of their work.
Kelly, who describes herself as a lens-based artist, has exhibited around the world and is already renowned in art and film circles. She has exhibited twice at Robert Redford’s Sundance Festival in Utah.
Born in Canada, she now lives in Newcastle. “I came here eight years ago and I stayed because the North East is a great place to be an artist,” she said.
“I’m very time rich here in terms of producing art and I don’t know of another place that could match it.”
One of the others chipped in: “Aren’t you married to a Geordie?”
The secret was out. But Kelly stood by her assertion that the North East is now a good place for artists to live and work.
The existence of the Tyneside residency would seem to underline the point.
Kelly’s work was included in a high-profile exhibition called The Cinema Effect which was mounted in Washington DC and then Barcelona, where it was seen by Dominic Scott and Tyneside chief executive Mark Dobson.
The fact that Kelly appeared on the cover of the catalogue may have spurred them to get her involved in the Pixel Palace’s most ambitious project to date. She then sat on the selection panel which saw Katie and Rachel recruited to join her at the Tyneside.
Katie, who lives in London and had never visited Newcastle before, has just graduated from Wimbledon College of Art with a masters degree in fine art.
But her background is in the film industry, working as an editor on special effects films. “You are very much a cog in the machine when you work on a film,” she said. “There are thousands of people you work among.”
Nevertheless, Katie was a cog in the machines that produced four of the Harry Potter movies, Charlotte’s Webb, a forthcoming Disney sci fi adventure called John Carter of Mars and “several horror B movies that were actually the most fun”.
With an interest in film that embraces the bits audiences never see – like discards on the cutting room floor – she gravitated to the world of fine art, where her initial ambitions had lain in any case.
Rachel Lancaster has also recently attained her masters degree in fine art from Newcastle University. Born in Hartlepool, she graduated from Northumbria University and has since built up a reputation in the North East.
She is represented by the Workplace Gallery in Gateshead and has a studio in Hoults Yard.
Despite pursuing independent lines of inquiry, it seems the three women have got on well.
“Every time we’ve finished something, we’ve had a little show and tell,” said Katie.
Kelly agreed. “For the most part we’ve been sharing and witnessing each other’s processes and feeding back.”
All said they had appreciated the fact that they were under no pressure to produce a finished piece of work.
“It hasn’t just been about turning out work,” said Rachel, adding that the last couple of years have seen her branching out from more conventional methods of artistic expression to experiment with music and new media.
Katie, at least, has managed to take advantage of being resident at the Tyneside. “I’ve managed to see 19 films while I’ve been here,” she said.